Island Hopping
by onawingandaswear
Summary: A mishap sends Tony Stark across the reality spectrum to experience other versions of his life. However, the longer he stays in a reality the more h he stays in a reality the more he is imbued with the memories of the Tony Stark of that reality. The experience starts to take a toll mentally. Steve/Tony and other pairings


Stark Tower has a different floor layout in this reality.

Tony had been admiring the New York skyline - he noted his private suite faced Brooklyn, not Manhattan - when Steve had come up from behind; wrapping his arms around Tony's chest and burying his face in crook of Tony's shoulder.

"I hate Skrulls." Came Steve's muffled voice. "Skrulls and Nazis."

"God forbid Nazi Skrulls." Tony muttered softly, enjoying the feel of Steve wrapped around him.

"Or Skrull Nazis." Steve agreed, chest rumbling with quiet laughter. "Could you imagine?"

This is Tony's favorite reality so far. He's still Iron Man, he still has an arc reactor pitted in his chest, but Steve Rogers defrosted in the 90s; and the two decades of adjustment have served him well.

Steve brushes his lips against Tony's neck and tightens his hold, trying to get him as close as possible.

"How's the new armor coming?"

Something swells in Tony's chest, and he spins around in Steve's embrace to face the soldier; looking up slightly because of their _negligible_ height difference. Steve smiles down, not breaking the hold, and the corners of his eyes crinkle slightly; barely there crow's feet illustrating the significant discrepancies between Tony's reality and this one.

They're closer in age in this reality - something that Tony secretly adores - and you can see it written in the lines on Steve's face. The serum has certainly done it's work, though, and Steve's youthful features have hardened into alpha-male masculinity.

"Are you feeling alright?" Steve prompts, raising a hand to cup Tony's cheek. "You're quiet," He pauses, "Too quiet." But Steve's eyes are alight with mirth and any potential threat is gone as quickly as it had appeared.

"I love you," Tony finds himself saying, and realizes then the gravity of his words, because he finds he actually means them. That revelation alone prompts him to say it again. "I really love you."

Steve smiles indulgently and leans down with an ease of motion that only comes from years of practice. Tony is half flattered by the move and half irritated that he's almost a full six inches shorter than this Steve Rogers.

"I love you, too." Steve whispers against Tony's lips, the vibration tickling slightly before Tony finds himself being guided into a kiss, the supersoldier's mouth pressed firmly to his own. When they part - somewhat reluctantly, Tony notes - Steve is smiling again, trailing his hands along Tony's hips and looking for all the world like the man in his arms is the greatest thing he's ever seen.

"So," Steve starts lightly, pulling back only to move toward the bar. "I'm thinking dinner?"

Tony immediately wants to throw out the names of any number of his favorite restaurants, but he can't quite recall what holdover there might be in this reality from his own, so he just hums in agreement and suggests "Thai?"

Steve pauses reaching for a water glass, a thoughtful look crossing his face.

"Something light. I was thinking sex after."

If Tony were a lesser man he would have been unable to formulate a reply; but he's not a lesser man, he's Tony Stark.

"Or," Tony proposes, sauntering up to where Steve is leaning against the stone countertop and angling into his personal space. "We could have sex now and order in."

Tony is not expecting Steve to reach down and massage Tony's dick through his pants.

"Alright. But we learned our lesson last time," Steve says throatily, fingers continuing to stroke Tony's growing erection.

"Two orders of wontons. I'm not sharing."

Oh, yes. This is Tony's favorite.

* * *

The sex is weird. There isn't a better word; or at least not one Tony can identify at this juncture. Steve is achingly attractive, and Tony hasn't done the horizontal tango in at least the space-time continuum's equivalent of several months, but something is off.

It just might be the bizarrely loud rumbling coming from Steve's stomach as he pistons into Tony from behind.

"I knew I should have eaten before this," He grunts out, words breathy and tight, and Tony is so damn close when it happens again, a dull roar over the slap of flesh that causes Steve to shake with laughter.

"I can't," he huffs out. "I can't do this, I have to eat something," Tony can already feel Steve softening inside inside of him and he whines.

"No, I'm so close, Steve, no,"

Steve laughs again, the sound clipped, and pulls out slowly amid Tony's protests, only to flip Tony onto his back and descend on his still hard cock; licking and sucking with a superb amount of determination.

"Jesus, Steve,"

It doesn't take long at all before Tony's spilling into Steve's mouth - the three fingers Steve pushes into him put him over the edge - and Steve swallows like a pro.

"Still hungry." Steve says lightly, trailing a hand across Tony's softening member only to scrape the overly sensitive tip with a blunt nail, like an asshole.

Tony jerks away and rolls right off the bed.

"We'll get back to this later?" Steve calls playfully from across the bed. Tony can only groan and fumble for his pants.

* * *

Sometimes, when Tony is immersed in a real-time reality, he'll have flashes of memories that he can only assume belong to his displaced counterparts. Sometimes, if he isn't on guard, he'll think these memories are his own. At least until something presents that is different enough to shake him out of the regression.

This, unfortunately, is one of those times. And Tony can't shake out of it.

"You understand why I can't have a supersoldier running around, Tony. My business partners, my clients, they see you stumping around with Captain America and they want me to provide an unobtainable product, a live specimen. I don't work in human trafficking, Tony, not yet. "

Tony can't move, stuck in a body that's not his. He can barely breathe, and Stane keeps talking, even as he moves toward the stairs and the lab.

"Pepper should have called your precious Steve by now, so let's just see how this plays out, shall we?"

* * *

Steve comes through the door carefully, scouting, ever the soldier; Obidiah has never been a potential threat, at least before this moment, and Tony knows the man is woefully caught off guard. Steve catches a glimpse of Tony and likely the gaping black hole in his sternum, before red explodes across his abdomen and his knees buckle, taking him to the ground hard.

"So happy you could make it, Steve."

It takes two seconds too long for Tony to realize Steve's been shot.

"The finest the U.S. Army has to offer and all it took to take you down was a .22 and the element of surprise. Take note, Tony. This is why you are the future," Obidiah gestures between them with the hand still grasping the arc reactor. "Or were, rather. Enjoy your final moments together."

Tony knows he won't die - can't die - but it doesn't make this easier. Reliving the bleakest moment of his life and simultaneously watching the man he loves suffer. Tony knows the end of this story: they both live, Stane dies, Tony Stark is Iron Man. What hurts now is knowing that Tony's counterpart experienced this, and saw death coming here as surely as Tony saw his own the first time around.

Obidiah fires another round, this one catching Steve in the chest, sending him onto his back, and Tony can see the way Obie's finger twitches on the trigger, like he's itching to keep going, to _make sure _Steve won't get up again.

Tony has a sick realization that Stane _wants_ Tony to watch Steve die, as slowly and as painfully as possible, and God, had Obie really hated him that much?

After Stane moves out of sight, and Tony isn't sure how much time passes. Between the wet sucking sound coming from Steve as he tries to breathe through a punctured lung and Tony's own barely-there whimpers, he can't tell.

He starts counting.

He makes it to forty and Steve stops making any noise at all. By fifty he can feel something wet on his cheeks.

This isn't like before. Tony doesn't want to move, to go after the spare reactor. If Steve's dead there's no point in surviving this; he could seek vengeance, but in the end there would be nothing left.

By six hundred and eighty-seven he can feel the muscles in his chest seizing, trying to compensate for the searing pain that Tony has come to associate with being one of the 'walking dead'. At six-hundred and ninety-nine Tony can feel the black creeping into his vision, and as he falls unconscious he knows he won't be waking up again.

Except he does wake up, rather violently, to a bloodied Steve clicking an outdated arc reactor into his chest.

"Tony,"

"S-Steve, your chest-"

Steve looks down at his shirt, the white cotton stained a rusty-brown from the wounds that should have killed him.

"Serum." He says quickly, brushing off Tony's concern to help lift his still sluggish body from the couch.

'Serum' is not an acceptable answer. Tony's seen Steve's healing factor at work; bruises can fade in minutes, not gunshot wounds -

And then he's back in his own head, and he's watching this scene unfold, no longer participating.

He wants to be sick. Realizing he's forgotten himself in someone else's memory _again;_ it's physically jarring and only serves to remind Tony of the fact that he _can't get home._


End file.
